- Sorin Antohi
Sorin Antohi (born
August 20 ,1957 ) is aRomania n historian, essayist, and journalist.Biography
Antohi was born in
Târgu Ocna . He received hisBachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from theUniversity of Iaşi and a DEA fromÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales . He taught history at the University of Michigan, at the University of Bucharest and at the Central-European University of Budapest (since 1995). At CEU, he founded Pasts, Inc. Institute for Historical Studies, where he pursued many scholarly activities. Antohi was part of the "Presidential Committee for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania" at the bequest of its chair,Vladimir Tismăneanu , before resigning in May 2006.Controversy
In a 2006 open letter published in the
Bucharest -based "22" review, Antohi admitted to having collaborated with theSecuritate , thesecret police inCommunist Romania , during the 1970s and the 1980s. He also claimed that he had been persecuted, and physically abused by the same Securitate as a member of the Jassy Group of anti-communist intellectuals, which included Dan Petrescu, Liviu Antonesei, Luca Piţu and others. As aninformant , he claimed that he offered non-detrimental information on the political views of many of his close friends.On October 20, 2006, the Romanian press reported that representatives of the Romanian Ministry of Education discovered that Antohi never defended his doctoral thesis in the country. It appears that he failed to write his PhD thesis, and was expelled from the doctoral program of the University of Iaşi in 2000. His
Curriculum vitae at the Central European University also listed several books that Antohi claimed were published byPolirom press, but which journalists from the "Ziua de Iaşi" daily were unable to locate; Antohi was unavailable for comment.In October 2006, this sequence of scandals led him to resign from his position as head of the history department at the
Central European University inBudapest ,Hungary , and from the Pasts, Inc. Institute for Historical Studies. He is still an editor of the academic journal "East European Politics and Societies".As of December 21, 2006, Sorin Antohi is still an editor of the academic journal "East European Politics and Societies", where his collaborator Vladimir Tismăneanu is chair of the editorial committee.
The scandal broke out again in July-August 2008, in Germany and Romania, after having co-directed a Conference with the financial help of the Institute for Cultural Studies. Newspapers in Germany and Romania alleged that Antohi had, in public forums over the course of the previous year, represented himself as the director of two research institutes, one in Germany and one in Romania, which do not exist. [http://www.cotidianul.ro/sorin_antohi_o_noua_impostura-53881.html]
Work
His historical work focuses on
intellectual history , the history of ideas, historical theory and the history ofhistoriography , and Romanian studies in European contexts. Antohi has also been actively involved in many institutional projects, focusing on the "education, training and career development of emerging scholars" from Eastern Europe. [http://www.pasts.ceu.hu/]Published volumes
*"Utopica. Studii asupra imaginarului social" ("Utopica. Studies on Social Imagination").
Editura Ştiinţifică , Bucharest, 1991 (second, revised and expanded [edition] Idea,Cluj-Napoca , 2005)
*"Civitas imaginalis. Istorie şi utopie în cultura română" ("Civitas Imaginalis. History and Utopia in Romanian Culture"), Litera,Bucharest , 1994 (second revised edition, Polirom, Iaşi, 1999)
*"Exerciţiul distanţei. Discursuri, societăţi, metode" ("The Practice of Distance. Discourses, Societies, and Methods"), Nemira, Bucharest, 1997 (second edition, 1998)
*"Imaginaire culturel et réalité politique dans la Roumanie moderne. Le Stigmate et l'utopie" ("Cultural Imagination and Political Reality in Modern Romania. The Stigma and the Utopia"),L'Harmattan ,Paris -Montréal, 1999
*"Războaie culturale. Idei, intelectuali, spirit public" (Cultural wars. Ideas, Intellectuals and Public Ethos), Jassy, Ed. Polirom, 2007Co-authored
*with
Moshe Idel , "Ceea ce ne uneste. Istorii, biografii, idei" (What binds us together. Histories, biographies, ideas), Polirom, Iasi, 2006 [http://www.polirom.ro/catalog/carte/ceea-ce-ne-uneste-istorii-biografii-idei-sorin-antohi-in-dialog-cu-moshe-ide-2347/]
*withAdrian Marino , "Al treilea discurs. Cultură, ideologie şi politică în România" ("The Third Discourse. Culture, Ideology, and Politics in Romania"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
*withMihai Şora : "Mai avem un viitor? România la început de mileniu" ("Do We Still Have a Future? Romania at the Start of the Millennium"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
*withAlexandru Zub : "Oglinzi retrovizoare. Istorie, memorie si morală în România" ("Rearview Mirrors. History, Memory, and Morals in Romania"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2000Edited volumes
* 2007, "Narratives Unbound. Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe". New York-Budapest: CEU Press, 514 pages (co-edited with Balazs Trencsenyi and Peter Apor).
* 2003, "Geografii simbolice", Caietele Echinox. Cluj: Dacia, 296 pp (co-edited with Corin Braga).
* 2003, "Ioan Petru Culianu. Omul şi opera", Jassy , Editura Polirom, 653 pp.
* 2001, "Religion, Fiction, and History. Essays in Memory of Ioan Petru Culianu". Bucharest: Nemira. 2 vols. (415 + 590 pp.).
* 2000, "Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath", Central European University Press, Budapest (coeditor Vladimir Tismăneanu)
* 1997, "Dialog şi libertate. Eseuri în onoarea lui Mihai Şora", Bucureşti, ed. Nemira, 332 pp. (coeditor Aurelian Crăiuţu).References
*ro icon [http://www.curentul.ro/curentul.php?numar=20060913&cat=1&subcat=100&subart=43242 Dana Carbelea, "Antohi nu mai e în Comisia Tismăneanu" ("Antohi No Longer Sits on the Tismăneanu Committee")] , in "
Curentul ", September 13, 2006
*ro icon [http://www.ziua.ro/display.php?id=209561&data=2006-10-21 George Damian, "Falsul doctor Sorin Antohi" ("The Fake Doctor Sorin Antohi")] , in "Ziua ", October 21, 2006External links
* [http://interviewwithAntohi.blogspot.com English-language interview with Antohi, originally published by "Szabad Változók: Filozófia és Tudomány"]
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